Page 4 - Amos Vusi Msiza Portfolio 216071123

My Teaching Philosophy

My reason for wanting to become a Mathematics teacher actually comes from a very undesirable memory. When I
was in grade 11, in the beginning of the year my Mathematics teacher who was fresh from university came to class

only once to hand us Mathematics textbooks and was never seen for the next four weeks. During that period I was
forced to study Mathematics on my own and one of my friends asked me to explain to him. Unfortunately, my friend

made me explain to the whole class and my classmates liked it. From that day my self-esteem was greatly affected
throughout my school period. It wasn’t until years later in university after I did Electrical Engineering that I turned back

to Mathematics and realized that it was something I was able to do and even enjoy.

My interest in the universe and objects around me are the reasons I desired to learn physical science. There is always
something new to discover or to explore how something function every day. It is very surprising how one can live here

on earth his or her entire life without wondering how things work or even how this very earth came to be. It is my desire
to bring such questions in my learners. I also want to make sure that firstly I teach them how to ask questions and then

also show them how to answer them.
When I was doing my Work Integrated Learning on my second year at Dumeleni Secondary School I learned that so

much of the interest of the learners lies in what is done in the introduction to new topic. I plan on using my mentor

teacher’s method of beginning each lesson with a “Question of the Day”. At the beginning of each lesson he made
learners read and write down an interesting question that was related to that day’s lesson. I realized that what learners

learned in the first few minutes of the lesson were often part of the lesson that they remembered the most.